


dead swan walking

by onthelasttrain



Series: cursed!captain swan cygnet believer/excerpts from a fic I'll never write [1]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternative Season 7, Cursed AU, Cursed Captain Hook | Killian Jones, Cursed Emma Swan, Excerpt from an au I'll never write, F/M, I know the summary might imply otherwise but its og, It's og killian not wish killian, Smut, Song fic, Song: Dead Girl Walking, but like... not too much, cursed captain swan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-30
Updated: 2020-01-30
Packaged: 2021-02-19 12:54:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22478035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onthelasttrain/pseuds/onthelasttrain
Summary: Jenny Bird (the cursed persona of Emma Swan) finds herself in need of a distraction when her bar is shut down. And what better way to forget your problems than with a dark haired detective who's caught your eye before?
Relationships: Captain Hook | Killian Jones/Emma Swan
Series: cursed!captain swan cygnet believer/excerpts from a fic I'll never write [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1869652
Comments: 6
Kudos: 33





	dead swan walking

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so this is sort of part of a bigger au I don't have the energy to write, but basically I've thought a bit about what season 7 would have been like had Emma been in it, and thus this fic was born. I think had Jen/Emma been in s7, OG Killian would be cursed as Detective Rogers, so when I refer to Rogers in this fic it's OG Killian, but cursed, and of course, Jenny Bird is cursed Emma, because I am creative with names. There's a little pre-curse flashback for clarity.
> 
> Inspired by the song Dead Girl Walking from the musical Heathers.

_“Swan!” Killian runs up beside her, his voice shaking and desperate, a far cry from the smooth talking, innuendo swinging man she met on the beanstalk. Back then she had raised eyebrows at him open arms and fought the urge to sigh when he slipped his hook around her arm and drew her close to check her cut hand._

_She grabs that arm now and pulls it across her body, her eyes not once leaving the black clouds spreading across the still morning sky, taking over the red hue painted by the rising sun._

_Red sky at morning, shepherd’s warning, isn’t that the expression?_

_Hope and Henry are deep in the forest, running to find the wardrobe to take them out of the curse. It’s only half-finished; Lady Tremaine’s curse came earlier than they could have anticipated and they’re working on an awful lot of hope, but it’s all they have. She wouldn’t have called her daughter Hope if she didn’t believe in it._

_“You’re shaking,” she comments with an empty smirk. “Hope it’s not because of me.” He huffs a laugh and kisses the back of her head, pulling her tighter against his chest like he can ward the curse off her himself. Maybe he can, he’s done more for her in the past._

_She turns around in his arms, harder than you’d think when he’s practically squeezing the air out of her, and tilts her chin up to look at him, green eyes meeting blue. She puts her hand on the side of his face, memorising the curve of his cheek, his long eyelashes and stupid elf ears she likes to make fun of._

_“I love you.” It’s a formality at this point, but she says it anyway._

_“I know,” he jokes weakly. He doesn’t even know what he’s quoting._

_She wants to kiss him. She wants to pull those lips against hers and forget everything, but in about ninety seconds that’ll be her reality anyway. So instead she buries herself in his chest, familiarising herself with the beat of his heart and the curve of his chest and the way his hair feels between her fingers._

_She crosses those fingers now, for luck. Everything relies on Henry and Hope getting to the wardrobe in time._

_Sometimes she wishes she wasn’t such a damn realist._

“Buying over?” Jenny asks, her voice so high it’s a wonder it doesn’t shatter the glasses hanging overhead. Belfry raises a smug eyebrow at her, leaning back in her barstool and flicking her golden-brown hair back. Jenny clenches her fist and presses it into the counter in an attempt to expel her anger. “What do you mean… buying over.”

“I mean I’m buying your bar over,” she says, talking slowly as though she was a child. It takes every ounce of self-control Jenny has not to reach across the bar and smack the self-righteous smirk off her face. “I’ve liked this little spot you’ve bagged here and thought I could make something of it. More than you are.”

“You can’t do this,” she says in a low voice. “You can’t. I have the right to this business!”

“Yes, you do. What you don’t have the right to is the building. I do. Every building along this street is owned by me and I have the right to use them in any way I want. You rented this place from me, Miss Bird. And as of now I’m terminating your contract.” She takes another pristine page out of her bag and slides it over the bar. “Take a look.”

Jenny’s knees buckle as she reads it, black print standing out starkly and mocking her. Every word is the truth, no matter how unfair it is. Belfry goes on about how come Monday the place is hers and Jenny has the weekend to clear out all her things and find a new job, but its white noise to her. All she can hear is her thudding heart in her ears and the memories of past rejections and her parents’ sighs of disappointment.

“I’ll see you on Monday to exchange the keys,” Belfry tells her, boredom evident in her tone. She gets up but walks away slowly, savouring the moment, eyeing every corner of the little bar Jenny’s called her own since… she can’t even remember. “I think I’ll turn it into a take away place. A healthy one. All that falafel and salad malarkey my Anna’s been on really got me thinking.” She doesn’t turn back for a response. If she did, Jenny’s pretty sure it would have been ‘go to hell’. Instead she strides out, pushing the door open and leaving her alone. The overhead light flickers and the tap at the bar drips incessantly despite her best efforts. She guesses that’s not her problem any more.

The streets are deserted when she walks home. Of course they would be; it’s so early in the morning that even the Seattle club scene has died down. The only people insane enough to be up right now are the drunk and the hopeless. She’s the latter, despite the shots she did in the bar after Belfry left.

And she’s mad. Holy fuck is she mad. Mad at Belfry mostly, but also mad at the world. Belfry’s just a product of it. Doesn’t excuse her, of course it doesn’t, but she knows how the world works. They’re all built into the woodworks of the capitalist system and despite what they’re led to believe in grade school, her name is carved into the lower rung of the ladder and Belfry’s at the top. She’s not pleading poverty at least. But she’s not living like Belfry and her daughters are either. She sells bits to make ends meet and they buy shoes they’ll wear once. She decides which bills can wait; they decide which car to drive that morning. It’s not fair and she knows it, so she’s not crying over it, despite the droplets on her face.

She presses her fist into her hand, biting the inside of her cheek in a bid to dispel the anger inside of her. That bar is hers. Belfry owns the building but never cared once for it, not even after it fell into Jenny’s hands. She is the one who lay on her back, sweat on her skin and sawdust in her mouth, screwing countertops on and who broke her back carrying kegs and taps inside. She is the one whose eyes were burning at 2am because she was writing down what she needed and how much. She is the one whose shoulders were aching after she carried crates of drink into that building and whose arms trembled after she set them all out. She is the one who spent her budget on placards and drink menus and the stained glass window claiming the place as hers.

Belfry could break that in one movement. It’s legal after all.

She slams her fist into the wall, desperate to feel something and to blame the tears on something other than her own stupid problems. She cradles it in her hand, setting her options out in front of her. She can go home, chug a bottle of whiskey and sprawl out on her bed. She can keep wandering the streets for the next twelve hours as if something’s going to come out that’s going to turn her shitty situation around. She can go back to the bar and actually get a head start on clearing up-

A light above her catches her eye; standing outside an apartment block, she sees a light switched on in a window. And not just any window. The same window she was on the other side of a while back, answering questions for a certain detective, the silhouette of whom she can see now, pulling on a t-shirt, his hair no doubt dishevelled and unruly after him having to keep it neat all day.

Her tongue darts out to the corner of her mouth as she realises another option; spend these eight hours getting freaky.

In the blink of an eye she’s pulling herself up over the low wall that surrounds the apartment block and her feet land on the solid soil on the other side, scattered with short blades of grass. She crosses the garden in double quick time, partially to escape the cold Seattle air. She cranes her neck, frowning. He’s on the third floor. And it’s not as though she can walk in the front door and use the elevator.

She takes a step back, shaking out her cold hands. She’s probably a hair’s length away from insane, looking around to make sure no one can see her (as if anyone would be out this late) and takes a few steps back, shaking out her hands. Just like fifth grade gymnastics, right? She won the bronze for that.

His window is closed and locked, as any sane man’s would be. Behind the curtain, she sees his shadow freeze, the outline of his shoulders tense and in the midst of everything, she’s sorry for the scare she’s giving him. Almost sorry enough to stop. Not sorry enough not to snap off his window lock.

Normally she’d knock but she doesn’t have the time. She's a dead girl walking, what can you expect?

“Miss Bird?” he asks as she stumbles over his window frame and lands in an unladylike heap on his carpet. She’s never seen his room, or his flat before, and wasn’t quite sure what she was expecting. Maybe stark white walls and black carpet, matching the no-nonsense, dedicated detective the town knows. Not flower patterned wallpaper and green carpeting in any case.

The man himself is half-standing and clad in pyjamas caught between pushing her out the window himself or calling the cops. Which would be him, she guesses.

“Miss… Jenny?” he begins, his shaking voice betraying his authority. Jenny pulls herself to her feet, yanking on her shirt to straighten it and tossing her hair out of her eyes. “What are you doing in my room?”

“Shh, shh, shh, shut up!” she replies sharply, waving her hand wildly in front of him. It’s his face, his eyes wide and his mouth half-open, that makes her remember herself. She flips her hair over her shoulder and strolls towards him, the grace and poise remembered from her old days, just starting out as a bartender, sweet talking tips out of older gentlemen. “Had to see you. Thing is, I decided I must ride you ‘til I break you.”

“Oh,” he squeaks, his cheeks pink. “Any um… any particular reason?”

“Well,” she sighs. She bites her lip, his comfort far, far too tempting. She could collapse in his arms and sob her heart out and tell him everything if she were here for comfort. But she’s not. So she falls back on an old habit and closes that door in her mind, the one that makes her think she might matter to someone. “Belfry. She says me and my bar have to go which makes you-” She pokes his chest firmly. “My last meal on death row. Now shut your mouth and lose the pyjama pants.”

“Why me?”

“What?”

“You could have any guy in town,” he points out. “Any man you like. Why pick me out of all of them?”

Crap, she thinks. She could give any reason; he was awake, he was there, he was close. Instead, before she even knows what she’s doing, her hands are on his shoulders, her touch gentle, their foreheads a breath apart. She has no right to be as scared as she is. Her mouth has no right being as dry as it is.

“Because… because you’re beautiful,” she says after what feels like an eternity. “And I know you have that lone wolf cop type thing going on but I think it’s an act. And the world is stupid and unfair and you know that and I know that and I want to lock it out there and pretend it doesn’t exist. I want to pretend that it’s beautiful.” She shrugs off her jacket and tosses it to the side. Her next sentence is both a demand and a question. “Let’s make this beautiful.”

“That works for me.”

And that’s all she needs.

She throws him onto the bed and pounces on top of him, kissing him hard while tangling her fingers in his hair. She allows him to sit up just enough to take that t-shirt off so she can drag her nails down his back, hoping she leaves a mark. If that doesn’t manage it, the way she’s sucking on his neck most definitely will. She uses all of her old tricks, some she thought she’d forgotten, some she can’t even remember learning. She kisses his neck slowly and his lips fast, digs her nails into his hips and pinning his hands above his head, being sure to always hold a little back, leaving him smiling and panting and wanting and begging.

He’s not half-bad himself, despite what she believes is lack of experience. He’s more than happy to follow her lead and obey every instruction. "Slap me," she demands, and he does, likely leaving a red mark on her cheek. "Pull my hair!" she tells him and he grabs a fistful and yanks it back, enough to elicit a yelp from her.

But he’s not totally submissive to her. He kisses her breast, then her neck, then the underside of her jaw. Even when she guides his hand he surprises her, massaging the skin gently or trailing his fingers to make her shiver. She picked a good one.

“Think we can break your bed?” she whispers in his ear, feeling herself close to finishing. She’s a little disappointed if she’s honest. She wasn’t quite ready for this to end.

“Think you already did that to my mattress, love,” he says.

"Get your ass in gear, then,” she commands. He rocks her, a moan that barely sounds like her escaping from her lips. She grabs the headboard with one hand and him with the other, kissing him with everything she can, a jolt of heat flashing between their lips as he keeps his hips rolling beneath her. She gasps a little, something hot rolling down her cheek. Could be sweat and she tells herself it is, because she won’t be the woman who cries during sex. “Make this whole town disappear.”

“As you wish,” he says, gasping a little between the words. “Emma.”

A low moan she barely recognises escapes her lips, her body shuddering as the rolling of their bodies slows and nearly stops altogether. There’s a name on her lips that she can’t quite place, an image of wild dark hair and blue eyes.

She pushes herself off him and stares at the ceiling, breathless. Rogers lays beside her, his chest rising and falling rapidly. They sit in silence, or as much silence as they can allow, their bodies warm and sticky, her hair clinging to her shoulders. Common sense begins to come back to her, having taken its sweet time, and she flushes red, this time not from warmth or exertion.

“Wow,” he says after a while, his voice high. She doesn’t bother hiding her laugh as he coughs and tries to lower it. “That was….”

“Not bad,” she says.

“Is that my rating?” he teases. Even flat on her back, she can feel his smirk, normally hidden behind the mask of the strait laced detective with a too-big shirt.

“I don’t give ratings,” she tells him, daring to turn her head to look at him. “Whatever you might have heard.”

“I’ve heard nothing,” he replies. He swallows and bites his lip. A sarcastic remark enters her mind but he interrupts her before she can say it. “So Belfry…”

“I don’t want to talk about Belfry,” she says suddenly, looking back up at the ceiling. That’s what she came here for, to forget her, to forget everything.

“Indeed. Apologies.” She hums in acknowledgement, needing a change in conversation.

“Was that your first?”

“Jenny!” he squeaks. “Hardly an appropriate question.”

“What?” she laughs. “You’ll let a girl break into your house and ride you like a pony but you’ll draw the line at her asking about your sexual past.”

“Well it’s not a very sexual past,” he says. “Yes, Miss Bird, you were my first. Happy?”

“I’ll wear it like a badge of honour,” she promises. “But you know, for future reference most people don’t like being called a different name during sex.” She turns onto her side and finds him doing the same, frowning in puppy-like confusion. She raises an eyebrow. Not like she cares. Not like it meant anything. “Who’s Emma?”

“Emma?” he repeats. It’s a pretty name, and it sounds pretty with his voice. “I don’t know an Emma.”

“You clearly do,” she says. “I said ‘make this whole town disappear’. You said, ‘As you wish, Emma’.” She shrugs, her shoulder dragging against his mattress. “I’m not mad. Just curious. Who is she? An ex?”

“I have no idea,” he says softly. “I know I said it, but I’ve never met an Emma in my life.” She snorts and flips onto her back.

“You sound like my ex,” she says. “Exes. Never met an Emma, never met a Caroline, never met a Marie. You men are all the same.”

“I swear to you, love,” he says. “I have no idea who Emma is.”

He’s a good actor. Really good. His voice small and confused, his eyes moving around as he pretends to look through his mind, feigning innocence. It’s kind of cute, she guesses.

“I almost believe you,” she says. She presses her cheek further into the pillow, the adrenaline wearing off and the night catching up with her. “Now shut it, I’m tired and I need sleep.”

“As you wish.” She huffs a laughs as she closes her eyes, the weight of the blanket covering over her. “Jenny.”

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos make a happy author and a happy author writes fics and fics make happy shippers :)


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